I went to see La Môme (La Vie en Rose), the acclaimed Edith Piaf biopic, this weekend.
On the positive side:
- Leading actress Marion Cotillard was very good, managing to not only span four decades but also various physical and mental states during the film. Her approach to the character was embodied, in everything she did, and that made her engaging to watch.
- The girl sure knows how to lip-synch along to vocal performances. Kudos for that - it’s easy to look fake (see Top of The Pops in days gone by for that) but hard to not just match the pace but also the breathing.
However, on the negative side…
- …about half the film consisted of the Piaf character shrieking at her various companions at a pitch that set my teeth on edge
- I don’t think I can listen to Piaf again - the film sort of spoilt the music for me, being so completely bound up with her character, which painted her as essentially a very nasty piece of work.
- …and in fact, I couldn’t sleep when I got home from the cinema because I had the most godawful earworm of “je ne regrette rien” which went round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round in my head until dawn when I managed to drop off with headphones jammed in my ears, listening to Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan on my iPod.
- While Cotillard apparently went to great lengths to embody the character of Piaf - shaving her eyebrows and her hairline, there were points at which the prosthetic eyebrows (used for young Edith) threatened to overtake the acting. Extreme close-ups do that.
- The film jumped about all over the place in time, lacking an overall narrative structure, which made it confusing and a bit irritating to follow. Or, to put it another way: an overall place in time, lacking a structure, which made it the confusing narrative film about the irritating bit and jumped over all to follow.
- There’s a very fine line between emotive facialising and gurning. There were at least a few moments when I thought that we were about to see some Al Jolson -style expressions. Hard to know how much of that was Piaf, though.
- There was an awful lot of assumed knowledge. I found myself constantly wondering who people were, how they related to each other, and whether something was important or not.
- Weird lingering focus/emphasis on certain bits of the story, later revealed to add not much to the whole narrative. So detailed, in-depth exposition of her childhood, illnesses, parent-substitutes and so on, and then…no further mention. Just seemed odd, is all. See also: showing practically an entire boxing match in the middle of it.
- Way, way too long. Seriously.
Yes, I agree with everything you say.
“Je ne regrette rien” is one of the songs which make one wish she’d shut up.
Now, if it had been “Hymne à l’amour” which they had flogged, I would have felt quite differently about the film; after half a century of hearing it, it can still give me a frisson.
I was SO looking forward to the new film about Edith Piaf but what a disaster! To think I talked my Beloved into seeing it on his one day off instead of the movie he has been wanting to see for 2 weeks!
Among other things, (1) the few sympathetic characters vanish nearly as fast as they appear, (2) she is not portrayed as sympathetic but rather as “bad luck” and I suspect she continues to be “bad luck” to the film-makers! (3) we all know she had a rotten life but she is portrayed as
abused AND abusive - the movie makers never missed a chance to show her being nasty to those closest to her. If the focus was to be her many warts, the
elements could have been presented within a satisfying structure but NO: (4) her life literally STOPS/starts/STOPS with no momentum - like a herky-jerky car constantly shorting out and never reaching a pinnacle - really upsetting, (5) the film’s running time was over-long with lots of false endings almost from the opening scene! Despite having some good components (6) it was a bucket load of broken mirror fragments - but nothing held together.(7) the captioning was done more to annoy rather than to help us stupid Americans - for example, did we need to see Normandie re-spelled for us Deau-Deaux as
Normandy, but then we have no translation of the song lyrics?? (8) every time I expected (at last) to hear her sing, the soundtrack fizzled out. At one point, instead of hearing her, we get to look at her audience as they listened - and reacted to her - but we the paying movie-goers were omitted from the experience! Very annoying. Argh. I guess the movie makers wanted us to be abused along with her and everybody she ever knew! (9) Edith Piaf was supposedly good friends with Judy Garland - they had much in common, I understand - and American audiences adored EP once they heard her perform - but if we are to believe this bio, she didn’t like America and couldn’t connect, except for having an adulterous affair with that long-distance commuting pig-farmer/boxer which brings me to another sore point (10) we are forced to suffer through an entire boxing match but were denied a concert - all we get is one song at the end - Edith may have had “no regrets” but I sure did! Poo bah. I really wanted to treasure this film but was not allowed to do so.
I can’t see how my local newspaper critic gave this an A-. C-minus at best.
What a pack of sad sacks the previous commenters are! My wife & I are great fans of Edith and we saw this film with PURE JOY! It has moved to #1 in my list of all-time great films. The frissons just kept coming for me, even though I knew a lot about her life. I think the Marion & director performed a major miracle. I would score this film as 6 out of 5 - with the extra point for degree of difficulty.
I loathe boxing as a sport, but the bout they showed had me transfixed (even though I knew the result).
I found the film gripping because the one great tribute we must all pay to Edith Piaf is that she managed to manifest her enormous gifts despite lack of advantages. Maybe what is so irritating to people who loved Piaf for her musicianship is that we were shown the sordid side of her life. However, I feel greatly encouraged by the fact that beauty and poignancy linger long after the torments of dysfunction and tragedy have passed. This surely is the key to her immortality and the creators of this film have done the world an immense service to show us dark and light in all its complexity.
I totally agree with the criticisms of the original review and respondent C. S. Drake. I am a huge fan of Piaf and had read Bret’s 1988 biography of this wonderful singer who overcame a brutal first 18 years of life.
The movie was well photographed and most of the acting superb. The storytelling, pace, selection of what details to elaborate on–all were awful. One of the worst examples of a biopic I have ever seen. A joke.
They NEVER showed that her greatest International years were 1947-1960. She appeared on Ed Sullivan eight times (8 times!) and had legions of fans in the US, yet that is never really shown. Her post Marcel Cerdan movie life is basically drugs, collapsing, screaming at people.
A joke. Almost a parody.
She discovered Yves Montand and was his lover/mentor, married her second husband in 1962 when he was 20 years her junior–and performed duets with him in many venues. NEVER SHOWN!
I’ll stop now, except to again say I agreed with the earlier criticisms, especially C.S. Drake’s disappointment that we got a long boxing scene but no concert! Forget a concert, but how many complete or half-complete songs were there from her classics?
TGS